Robert Waldinger, professor of psychiatry at Harvard and fourth director of this study, which began in 1938, publishes the results in a book, “The good life”, a result which highlights the longevity of the participants who most frequently maintained their social ties.
Friendship is the secret of a happy life. It’s neither a positive psychology mantra nor some sort of Coué method of happiness. Robert Waldinger is a professor at Harvard University in the United States, psychiatrist and fourth director of a rather unique study since it has been underway for 80 years. Its predecessors launched it in 1938, they wanted to study the development of health and emotions over an entire adult life. They therefore recruited 724 teenagers, and followed them all their lives, then their partners, their children, their grandchildren.
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Half of these guinea pigs were Harvard students, the other half lived in the poor neighborhoods of Boston, and they regularly reported to the panel of researchers on their joys, their difficulties, their physical, emotional and psychological state. They accepted blood tests, blood pressure measurements, medical reports. And Robert Waldinger has just published the results in a book The good life , the good life, because that’s what it’s all about. What is a good life? And what are the participants saying today? “Well, when asked what stood out to themexplains the university, they don’t answer that they have made a lot of money, or that they have made such and such a good investment, they talk about their relationships, of the people they can count on, of those who have been there in difficult times and of those whom they themselves have comforted.“
Prevent stress-related pathologies
Social ties, exchanges, sharing have a considerable impact on psychological well-being, that, other studies have already demonstrated, but what this study adds is also the impact on the health, on the management of stress, anxieties, depression sometimes. Being able to speak confidently to a friend in a moment of panic or a period of anxiety, for example, helps to reduce tension, and prevents the development of stress-related pathologies in the long term.
In the end, what participants who are in good health and say they are happy after 60 have in common are strong friendships, strong social contacts, in discussion groups, associations, collectives. Today, of the 700 teenagers who agreed to participate 80 years ago, 60 are still alive, 2,000 of their descendants are followed, and the study of all these lives reminds us of the essential: cultivating sharing, trust, solidarity, mutual aid, that’s the ultimate wealth.